After years of ho-hum installments, this long-running franchise has finally produced something truly original — though its bizarre, often nightmarish vision won’t be to all tastes.

As a grown adult who went in stone-cold sober, I can’t say that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem took me anywhere I hadn’t been before, though that doesn’t mean I was given nothing to think about.

As Hollywood continues to strip-mine 20th-century pop culture wherever it can, Mutant Mayhem is worth acknowledging as the rare reboot that harkens back to its franchise origins while presenting something new.

This is the best Turtles film ever made and is one of the best comic book adaptation films of 2023.